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"Did you like Lotta?"

The long lashes veiled her brown eyes oncemoment, and he remembered Bully Joe Davies&039; frantic cry: I dunno how the others do it To achieve the vah "And we-birds, I

ents And that" She stopped her next words on her lips and threw a quick, wary glance at Ernchester, silent beside the la, she continued, "Lotta and s a lady needs from another lady, see"

And that That what? Hoould this beautiful, over-dressed porcelain doll of a girl see the quiet antique lady Anthea? As a stiff-necked and uncongenial bitch, Asher thought, beyond a doubt Mde La Tour had known at a glance that Lotta and Chloe were two of a kind and that Anthea-for undoubtedly it was she ent by the name of Mrs Wren-was far other than they

"Did you know her rich young ton?"

She set "Oh, Iwith one of her thick blonde curls "Lambs, they were-even Bertie Westmorland, so stiff and proper, like it killed hi her wherever she ith his eyes We&039;d go to theatre panics together-Bertie&039;s brother, ht have along It was all I could do soht there in the shadow of the back of the box Like sry It would have been so easy"

"It&039;s a trick you could only have done once," Asher re lashes

"That&039;s what Lionel said Not when others are around, no matter how bad I want it-not where anyone will know" She her than the top button of his waistcoat; he could smell the patchouli of her perfume, and the faint reek of blood on her words as she spoke "But no others are around now-and no one will know"

Her tongue slipped out, to touch the protruding tips of her teeth; her fingers slid around his hand, ith the evening&039;s earlier kill He could see her eyes on his throat and on the heavy silver links of the chain Though he dared not look away fro in the room Perhaps it was only that the vampire Earl would not have cared whether she killed him or not

"Ysidro will know," he reminded her

She dropped his hand and looked away A shiver went through her, "Cold dago bugger"

"Are you afraid of hilance slid back to his, brown eyes that should have been angelic, but had never been so, he thought, even in life Her red mouth twisted "You think he&039;ll protect you fro as he needs you You&039;d better not be so quick about findin&039; the answers to your questions"

"And I have already told hi voice of Ysidro , Asher saw the Spanish vampire at his elbow, as Grippen had appeared earlier that evening; his glance cut quickly back in tune to see Chloe start She hadn&039;t seen him either

"So perhaps," Don Sis as they are and not atteht to be You should not have come here, Jareat deal"

"That is what I one, permit me to open the barn door for you Calvaire&039;s rooms are upstairs-or one set of Calvaire&039;s rooms I know of at least two others that he had There may have been more"

"Hence all the secrecy," Asher said, as he preceded the vampire into the dark stair outside "Any in Lambeth?"

"Lambeth? Not that I knew of," He are of those cold yellow eyes piercing his back

They ascended the neck-breaking twist of steps to the stuffy back rooh he listened closely, Asher could hear no footfall behind him from either Ysidro or Chloe and only the faintest of rustles froht Ernchester must have left at the same time Ysidro had entered, for the Earl had been nowhere in the cellar as they departed And, in fact, Charles and Anthea were both waiting for them in the parlor of a small flat which had been fitted up on the second floor, with its Tiffany-glass lae, white faces the rosy illusion of hu eyes

"I trust you&039;re not still sleeping in the building, Chloe?" Ysidro in-quired, as they entered and the girl set her lamp on the table

"No," she said sullenly She retreated to a corner of the room and perched there on one of the patterned chintz chairs; the place was furbished up in several styles, fat overstuffed chairs alternating with pieces of Sheraton and Hepplewhite, and here and there a lacquered cabinet of chinoiserie filled with knickknacks and books The parlor was tidily kept, with none of the decades-deep clutter of other vah an open door beyond Lady Anthea&039;s chair, he could see a neat bedroom, its s heavily shrouded and, no doubt, shuttered beneath those layers of curtain There was no coffin in sight-Asher guessed it would be in the dressing rooone," Lady Ernchester said softly Her tea-brown eyes went to Asher She had put up her hair again and bore no evidence of her struggle with Grippen beyond the fact that she had changed her dress for a dark gown of purple-black taffeta Asher wondered if Minette had erous enemy; his hand&039;s welted up where he touched the silver of your chain"

Asher privately thought it served theso His whole body was stiff and aching from the impact with the wall He was still, he reer, but, nevertheless, Grippen&039;s ab-sence comforted hias jet and opened its drawers They were empty

"Lionel did that," Anthea&039;s voice came from behind him "He tells me he did the same at Neddy&039;s house"

"He&039;sthe one who see the barn door after the horse has escaped" Asher turned back, roving cautiously about the roo the French books in the bookshelves, the cushions on the caone to stand next to Anthea&039;s chair "If silver affects you that badly, how do you purchase what you need?"

"As any gentleman of fashion can tell you," Anthea said with a faint so for years-centuries, even-without actually touching cash In earlier years we used gold Fliodsend, but one eneral there is enough of a chill at night to warrant the wearing of gloves"

"But they&039;ve got to be leather," Chloe put in ungraciously "And I ht through silk"

Anthea frowned "Does it? I never found it so"

Ysidro held up one long, white hand "I suspect it toughens a little with time I know if you had touched silver as Grippen did, Chloe, your arm would have been swollen to the shoulder for weeks, and you would have been ill into the bargain So it ith ile stuff, this pseudoflesh of ours"

"I remember," Anthea said slowly &039;The first time I touched silver-it was bullion lace on the sleeve of one of owns, I think-it not only hurtdesperately thirsty and unable to hunt Charles had to hunt forme" She broke off suddenly and looked away, her beautiful face iical prey to capture and bring back alive to Ernchester House had to be so human-since it was the death of the human psyche as much as the physical blood that the vah to be easily transportable

"Kiddies?" Chloe laughed, cold and tingling, like shaken silver bells "God, you could have had the lot oflittle verest of &039;em has brats of her o" She paused and turned her face away suddenly, her ht; a delicate, beautiful face that would never grow old She took a deep breath, a conscious gesture, to steady herself, then went on evenly "Funny-I see girls as in the Opera ballet with et anythin&039; on the streets but ht now and get e nize ain, staring before her with her great dark eyes, as if seeing into that other ti on Harrow Hill and feeling the furnace heat of burning London washing over her e voice, "It&039;s queer, that&039;s all" Asher felt the pressure of her mind on his, as she lanced quickly at her husband; Ernchester, irl out

"It beco back to Asher, "once those we knew in life are all-gone One is not-reain, that sain "Even when one is for all practical purposes i to her feet, she fol-lowed her husband in a whisper of dark taffeta fro time Asher stood where he had been by the fireplace, his arlow of the shaded lights The vaaze still resting thoughtfully on the door, and Asher had the i footfalls blending away into the other sounds of London, the rattle of traffic in Salisbury Place and the nocturnal roar of Fleet Street beyond, the deep vibration of the Under-ground, the sough of the river below the Eways in the night

At length Ysidro said, "It is a dangerous tiaze returned to hi away "It happens to vaes-I have seen theh them myself, some of them When a vam-pire has existed thirty, forty years, and sees all his friends dying, grow-ing senile, or changing unrecognizably from what they were in the sweetness of a shared youth Or at a hundred or so, when the whole world reith; when all the ser even remembered When there is no one left who recalls the voices of the singers which so inextricably forrow careless, and the sun will always rise"

He glanced over at Asher, and that odd ghost of what had once been a half-rueful, bittersweet smile flicked back onto the thin lines of his face "So-friable- that way They change with the times, as we all must, but it becoed when shopkeepers are irubby hackney cabs dart out in front of me in the street, or when I see the filth of factory soot fouling the sky We are, like Dr Swift&039;s Struldbruggs, old people, and we tend to the unreasonable conservatism of the old Very little is left of the world as it was in King Charles&039; day, and nothing, I fear, remains of the world I knew Except Grippen, of course" The smile turned sardonic "What a companion for one&039;s immortality"

He strolled over to the fireplace where Asher stood and prodded with one well-shod toe at the cold debris within, amillefeuille of white paper ash, like that which had decorated Neddy Ha-cold hearth "That is, provided, of course," he added ironically, "one sur-vives the first few years, the terrible dangers of si how to be a vampire"

"Did Rhys the Minstrel teach you?"

"Yes" It was the first softening Asher had seen in those gleaood teacher It was, you understand, erous in those days, for in those days folk believed in us"

It was on the tip of Asher&039;s tongue to ask about that, but instead he asked, "Did you know Calvaire created a fledgling?"

The cold eyes see, thin nostrils flared "Hewhat? "

"He created a fledgling," Asher said

"How do you know this?"

"I&039;ve spoken to him," Asher said, "A man named Bully Joe Davies, from Lambeth or thereabouts-he said he&039;d break my neck if I told anyone of it, particularly yourself You see your peers"

"Do you refer," the vampire asked coldly, "to that rabble of steve-dores, sluts, and tradesmen as my peers? The Farrenscorandfather was no more than a jumped-up baron"

"Your fellows, then," Asher amended "And in any case, I trust you&039;ll protectfollowed-stalked I&039;o to another of Calvaire&039;s safe houses"

Ysidro nodded; Asher could see the thoughtin the pale laby-rinth of his eyes

He walked over to the cabinet again, ran a finger, idly questing, through its eeonholes, every scrap of evidence of contacts burned by the cautious Grippen lest any should do what Asher had done-trace a name, a shop, an address, that would lead hilanced back at the vaht

"I hadn&039;t intended on telling you that," he went on after a ht about Calvaire, a little, and about va to ht You&039;d be an absolute fool to hire a human to track down your killer, much less tell him who and what you are-if your killer is human But you don&039;t think he is,

"In fact, you think the killer is another vampire"